Then he said no more. Anders gave in to his neck muscles, which were insisting on rest, and sank down with his forehead on the grass next to Henrik's head.
Farewell. Dickhead.
The loss of blood and the exertion had finished him. All he could do was lie there, just managing to turn his head to one side so that he could breathe. The minutes passed and the chill of the ground began to make the right side of his head go numb. Spiritus was crawling around in his hand but not trying to escape. Anders could feel the streams and veins of water in the ground beneath him, and was barely able to distinguish them from his own weakened circulation.
I am… sinking…
The only heat that existed was coming from the burning, agonising wound in his throat. The warm wound remained on the surface, while he sank down into the coolness of the earth and it grew dark around him. He lost contact with his body and fell.
Sing me to sleep…
He no longer knew what was up or down, he was in freefall, unaware of anything beneath him or any approaching conclusion. He was floating. He was in dark waters, and he was drowning.
His lungs contracted as he tried to breathe in air that did not exist. He had only seconds left to live. But the seconds passed and still his consciousness drifted in the formless darkness, refusing to die away and thinking: I have been here before. I know what happens next.
The horror of what was to come made a heart begin to beat quickly somewhere out in the darkness. It could be his own heart, but such distinctions were meaningless here. There was a beating in fear, and there was something coming closer.
It's coming…
The darkness grew thicker, a shadow began to form inside a shadow. He was nothing against this shadow and he was being sucked towards it like krill about to be strained through the baleen plate of a whale. It wasn't interested in him, it was too immense to bother about him, but he was in its way and he was being drawn into it.
Come with me…come with me…
A hand crept into his, a little hand. It tugged and pulled. Maja's hand.
You have to come now!
No. I am Maja. Daddy's hand is so big. When we go for a walk I just hold on to his forefinger. His forefinger is in my hand. Why doesn't he come?
Daddy, come on!
Her hand is in mine, it's so tiny and slender, it's as if I'm holding a finger, come on Daddy, now Daddy, we have to go!
I'm coming.
He followed the hand that was pulling him, he pulled on the finger that was following him and the darkness shifted in shades of aluminium as the finger and the hand turned into an insect and the salt-laden sea air was drawn into his lungs in a single deep breath.
I'm coming.
He was able to see once again. He was able to breathe. His body was lying on a grassy slope. The wind sluiced across his face. Beside him lay wet clothes, as if laid out to dry in the moonlight. Judging by the position of the moon in the sky, he had been gone for a long time, perhaps several hours. Ten metres away from him lay the boat, pulled up on the shoreline.
I can't do it.
He saw before him the effort required to push the boat out into the water, to get the engine started. He didn't think he could do it. He wanted to carry on sleeping, but without dreams.
Come on!
'Yes, yes…' mumbled Anders, getting unsteadily to his feet and tottering over to the boat. The wind had picked up and was helping him. The little waves had been working on the boat, and had started to draw it towards them. In a little while longer it would probably have drifted away. He only had to give it a gentle nudge, and it was floating out on the water, then he followed it, scrambled up and fell over the rail.
He tried to open the hand holding Spiritus, but his fingers were locked. With the help of the other hand's slightly more flexible fingers, he managed to force the hand open and tip Spiritus back into the matchbox. He stared at the engine.
One pull. I can manage that.
He was on the point of giving up again when the engine didn't start first time, but he gritted his teeth, prayed a wordless prayer and tried again. The engine started. Before he grabbed the controls he checked that he still had the snowsuit inside his jacket.
To no purpose.
Slumped on the seat in the prow so that he could barely see over the rail, he left Kattholmen and headed for Domarö. He knew what he must do, but he had to rest first, regain a little of his strength.
He was almost unconscious when he reached his jetty and it wasn't until he was halfway up to the Shack that he caught sight of himself for a brief moment and asked himself a question:
Did you make the boat fast?
He didn't know, he couldn't remember, and he didn't even have the strength to turn around and check. If he hadn't tied the boat up, he wouldn't be able to do anything about it anyway. A while later he was vaguely aware of opening the outside door, closing it behind him, finding a bottle of diluted wine on the bureau and knocking it back. Then he collapsed on the floor and knew no more.
The first
Anders will be the last. Let him sleep and rest. He will need it. Meanwhile, let us listen to the tale of the first one.
It is a kind of fairy tale, and as in all fairy tales, the details have drifted away on the tide of time and we are left behind on the shore with at best part of a keel, a ship's figurehead or a log book damaged by the water.
Something happened. It happened at some point. That is all we need to know. At the time when the inhabitants of Domarö made their living from herring fishing and an unholy alliance with the powers of the deep, the tale may have been better known. Now only fragments remain, and we must let our imagination build the ship.
Because the story is about a ship. Or rather the wreckage of a ship. It might have been a small cog, that is of no importance. The ship had been transporting salt, presumably between Estonia and Sweden, following some route or other.
The crew could have been Swedish or Estonian, but in any case we have only one survivor to take into account. We will assume he is Swedish, and we will call him Magnus.
We find him on the Aland Sea. His ship has drifted off course and has foundered in an unusually thick October fog. Terrified and frozen to the marrow, Magnus has managed to scramble up on to part of the stern, which has broken away. He calls to his shipmates, but there is no reply. The fog lies like a blanket around him, preventing him from even seeing the size of the piece of wreckage that is carrying him.
But he is floating. He has been lucky in the midst of the disaster. The piece of the ship on which he finds himself is shaped in such a way that no part of his body is in the water. He has been lucky. If only he were not so dreadfully cold!
We do not know how long Magnus drifts in this way. It could be days, but it is probably only hours, since the fog does not lift. He is floating through a milk-white world and he cannot hear anything, apart from the sounds he himself makes when he changes position or cries for help out into the emptiness.
The first thing he becomes aware of is not a visual impression or a sound. It is a smell. And the smell alone, the aroma is enough for him to feel that warmth is beginning to seep into his body. It is the smell of animals.
Once before he got lost in the fog at sea. On that occasion they reefed the sails and waited for the mists to disperse. But before that happened they made contact with the land through that smell. Manure, animals' bodies, land! Animals mean people, and rescue. They rowed in the direction of the smell and found their way into the harbour.